Rio men oust Evangels, earn spot in Final Four

Rio Grande/NAIA Sports Information
     DECATUR, Ala. - Since the close of regular season play, the University of Rio Grande has been all about the process of building itself a national championship run.
     On Thursday afternoon in the quarterfinal round of the NAIA National Championship, the RedStorm placed another brick in the wall.
     Charlie Chechlacz scored one goal and assisted on another, fueling a 2-1 win over Mid-American Christian (Okla.) at the Jack Allen Soccer Complex.
     Head coach Scott Morrissey's squad, which was ranked No. 20 in the final regular season NAIA Top 25 and seeded ninth among the 10 teams which advanced to the final site, improved to 18-3-2 with the win.
     The RedStorm advanced to the semifinal round of the tourney for the first time since 2016 and will face fourth-seeded and sixth-ranked Bethel (Ind.) - a 3-0 win over Georgia Gwinnett in Thursday's opening quarterfinal - on Saturday at 2 p.m. EDT.
     The Evangels, who were attempting to reach the Final Four for the first time in program history, finished 19-2-2 with the loss.
     "We told our guys at halftime that we weren't good enough at keeping possession and making them defend," Morrissey said. "I thought they had more energy than we did in the first 45 minutes, but once we got settled into the second half and started making them defend you could see them start to wear down and we started playing with some confidence."
     After a scoreless first half which saw the two teams combine for only three shots on frame and no corner kick opportunities, it was Rio Grande who drew first blood when junior Vilius Labutis (Ireland) scored from the left side of the 18 off of a feed from Chechlacz with 16:43 remaining in the contest.
     Chechlacz's crossing pass from the right side ricocheted off of multiple MACU defenders before finding its way to Labutis.
     Chechlacz, a senior from Liecestershire, England, then made it 2-0 just under 2-1/2 minutes later with a looping goal from 35 yards out via a pass from junior Diego Montenegro (Santiago, Chile).
     "On our first goal, we were able to capitalize on their defender letting the ball play him in the box and Vilius was there to finish it," said Morrissey. "The second goal was a good heads-up play on the part of Charlie seeing their keeper off his line and he was able to chip in over him."
     That's how things stayed until Luan Cesar snuck a shot barely inside the left post past the outstretched arms of Rio senior goalie Daniel Merino Correa (Madrid, Spain) with 1:59 remaining to slice the deficit in half.
     The Evangels had one other scoring chance in the waning moments after Rio Grande was whistled for being offside, but Kelt Jager shot from the left wing was too strong and sailed high.
     MACU also failed to cash in on a handful of scoring opportunities earlier in the match.
     Jack Price had a one-on-one chance in the 15th minute after an errant Rio pass, but Merino Correa made a nifty save to preserve the scoreless deadlock.
     Uviwe Qasha had a smooth set of moves to allow him to launch his first shot, but after it hit the near post his subsequent attempt - from a deep angle - rolled just wide of the frame with under 20 minutes in regulation.
     "Going back to the opening round, we've played four very good opponents and been able to come up with four quality results," Morrissey said. "Everybody at this point presents you with problems and that won't be any different on Saturday. We've just played pretty well of late and have done a good job of solving those problems."